Authors: Peter Leonard.
Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
Publication Date: 1997-07-09


Reviews :

    Peter Leonard provides an accessible analysis of debates about the crisis of the welfare state under the contemporary conditions of postmodern scepticism and the triumphs of global market capitalism. In the last two decades Western governments have sought to replace the post-war welfare compact with neo-conservative individualism. The prospects for the Left look bleak. At the same time, postmodern critique raises profound questions about the validity of a mass politics of emancipation based on the universal values of justice, reason and progress.

From a critical perspective founded in Marxism and feminism, Leonard uses elements of postmodern deconstruction to consider how we might now re-think the present and future of welfare. He draws the reader into a dialogue about the implications for reconstructing welfare: of changes in ideas about the individual subject; the context of culture and racism; the organization of welfare; the nature of 'the new economy'; and the possibilities of a politics of resistance.

Postmodern Welfare will be required reading for students and teachers in the social sciences and professions concerned with social policy and the welfare state, and for anyone interested in postmodern theory and the social and political prospects facing Western societies.

...

Authors:
Paperback, 390 pages
Publisher: Springer
Publication Date: 2008-09-26
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2008, held in Torino, Italy, in August/September 2008 within the DEXA 2008 conference cluster.

The 32 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 119 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on strategies and frameworks, motivators, and contexts, assessment, evaluation and benefit models for ICT investments, inclusion and user-centred design, interoperability and application of semantic technologies in e-government.

...

Authors: Jerry Brito.
Digital, 5 pages
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Publication Date: 2006-09-22


Reviews :

    This digital document is an article from Regulation, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1499 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Public safety interoperability.(MERCATUS REPORTS: COMMENTARY)
Author: Jerry Brito
Publication: Regulation (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 29 Issue: 3 Page: 6(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale...

Authors: Otto, von Busch. Karl, Palmås.
Paperback, 132 pages
Publisher: OpenMute
Publication Date: 2006-01-12


Reviews :

    In recent years, designers, activists and businesspeople have started to navigate their social worlds on the basis of concepts derived from the world of computers and new media technologies. According to Otto von Busch and Karl Palmås, this represents a fundamental cultural shift. The conceptual models of modern social thought, as well as the ones emanating from the 1968 revolts, are being usurped by a new worldview. Using thinkers such as Michel Serres, Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda as a point of departure, the authors expand upon the idea that everyday technologies are profoundly interconnected with dominant modes of thought. In the nineteenth century, the motor replaced the clockwork as the universal model of knowledge. In a similar vein, new media technologies are currently replacing the motor as the dominant 'conceptual technology' of contemporary social thought. This development, von Busch and Palmås argue, has yielded new ways of construing politics, activism and innovation. The authors embark on different routes to explore this shift. Otto von Busch relates the practice of hacking to phenomena such as shopdropping, craftivism, fan fiction, liberation theology, and Spanish social movement YOMANGO. Karl Palmås examines how publications like Adbusters Magazine, as well as business theorists, have adopted a computer-inspired worldview, linking this development to the dot.com boom of the late 1990s. Hence, the text is written for designers and activists, as well as for the general reader interested in cultural studies....

Authors: John A O'Looney.
Paperback, 225 pages
Publisher: ESRI Press
Publication Date: 2000-01-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Geographic information systems (GIS) have become a fact of life in most large and small local governments, and the business of local government is to make decisions in the public interest. Using the varied case studies included, this comprehensive resource looks beyond the mechanics of systems and screens to show how local governments can make geographic information systems true management tools. By exploring the innovative ways to use GIS to improve local government operations, the case studies provide a framework of understanding of the unique capabilities of GIS and also allow imaginative individuals to explore new avenues for utilizing this increasingly important technology-a technology that helps integrate public values into decision making....

Authors: George Abe. Alicia Buckley.
Hardcover, 600 pages
Publisher: Pearson Education
Publication Date: 1999-12-20
Edition: 2

Reviews :

   

A comprehensive introduction to high-speed residential networks, integrating technical, business, and regulartory challenges.

• Surveys the various types of access networks: Cable TV, xDSL, FTTx, and wireless
• Defines basic technology requirements for implementing residential broadband and assessing the state of readiness
• Reviews the business conditions and regulatory practices that affect rollout and viability of residential networks
• Discusses the technologies and challenges associated with the in-home network
• Describes the new and existing entertainment and data services, and how to evaluate the demand for them
• Provides systems issues to be resolved in connecting access networks to home networks

Residential Broadband, Second Edition aims to provide a comprehensive, accessible introduction to the topics surrounding high-speed networks to the home. It is written for anyone seeking a broad-based familiarity with the issues of residential broadband (RBB) including product developers, engineers, network designers, business people, professionals in legal and regulatory positions, and industry analysts. Readers will learn about the services that are driving the market, the technical issues shaping the evolution, and the network within the home and how it connects to the access network. The author explains the technical concerns, accessibility, the current state, and potential future of cable TV, xDSL, FTTx, wireless access networks, and home networks.

...

Authors: Jacqueline Vaughn.
Paperback, 175 pages
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Publication Date: 2006-12-18
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Managerial Discretion in Government Decision Making: Beyond the Street Level provides a comprehensive discussion of managerial and executive discretion at all levels of government. Beginning with a discussion of moving beyond street-level discourse, this book sets the stage for studying managerial discretion. It examines aspects of expertise in discretionary decision making at the federal level, including several case examples to account for the wide usage of executive orders in managerial positions, and examines the formal roles of managers at state government levels, while highlighting the variations among state managers in their usage of discretion, with examples of state managers with too much discretion. Next the book identifies key aspects of managerial discretion in local governments, including information on the applicability of discretion in school districts and its implications in decision making, discusses the myriad ways in which managers in local jurisdictions either individually or collectively make decisions within the parameters of state laws, board regulations, and/or council ordinances, and concludes with a discussion of how much discretion managers should have and dangers inherent in providing managers with too much discretion, and reinforces the discourses on accountability in public organizations....

Authors: Peter Harsha. Steve Mosier. David Bruggeman. Najma Yousefi. Lorraine Woellert. Eric Fisher. Jolene Kay Jesse.
Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: SciTech Publishing
Publication Date: 2004-01-01


Reviews :

    The book provides an introductory overview to all of the major policy issues in the United States related to information technology. These issues include federal funding of research that helped to create the Internet; telecommunications issues such as regulations about wireless technologies; computer security and homeland defense; governance and use of the Internet such as spam, viruses, electronic voting, taxation of online commerce, and child pornography; privacy; intellectual property issues such as copyright infringement related to peer-to-peer sharing of music and video files, or trademark infringement through the misuse of domain names ("cybersquatting"); antitrust in the software industry; uneven access to information technology in poor, rural, and minority communities ("Digital Divide"); and visas for foreign workers. Every chapter identifies the main players, the history of legislation and court cases in this area, and describes recent events.

Accessible and interesting to both policy people and technical computing people, as well as to any computer user or IT worker who wanted a general understanding of these issues.

The book will help policy people, most of whom are generalists, to understand the basic issues of IT policy. The book will also help IT professionals to understand the process by which their technology is politically controlled....

Authors: Felix B. Tan.
Hardcover, 324 pages
Publisher: IGI Global
Publication Date: 2002-02-01


Reviews :

    As organizations prepare to compete globally in the new millennium, the effective deployment and exploitation of IT will create the difference between those that are successful and those that are not. What lessons are there to be learned from organizations that run global IT operations and deploy IT in support of their global business operations? What lessons are there to be learned in the development, implementation, use and management of IT from organizations operating in countries other than their own? Cases on Global IT Applications and Management: Success and Pitfalls brings together original cases that report on these aspects of global IT applications and management and benefits educators, researchers and practitioners alike....

Authors: Abbe Mowshowitz.
Hardcover, 280 pages
Publisher: Quorum Books
Publication Date: 2002-03-30


Reviews :

    Computers mediate between individuals by providing channels of communication in the form of messaging sytems. They act as brokers in matching buyers and sellers, employees and employers, resources and work processes, and so on. The explosive growth of electronic commerce on the Internet has made such functions commonplace. Computer-based mediation and brokerage, along with the expanding role of information technology in the continuing globalization of the economy, has tremendous political, social, managerial, and economic consequences. For managers, and for the concept of organization in general, these consequences manifest themselves most clearly in the virtual organization, a new paradigm that has been evolving for decades and that is swiftly gathering steam and overtaking traditional organization. Virtual organization is founded on the separation of requirements (for example, inputs such as components) from the ways in which requirements are met, or satisfiers (for example, suppliers and distribution networks). Separating these elements allows managers to switch easily from one way of meeting a requirement to another, by, for example, laying off higher-paid workers in the United States and hiring cheaper labor overseas or south of the border. Used systematically, switching brings huge increases in productivity, provided that transaction costs are held in check. The price of this increased inefficiency is that, practiced regularly, switching weakens personal, political, and business loyalties. Absent a sense of loyalty to persons or places, virtual organizations distance themselves--both geographically and psychologically--from the regions and countries in which they operate. This process is undermining the nation-state, which cannot continue indefinitely to control virtual organizations. A new feudal system is in the making, in which power and authority are vested in private hands but which is based on globally distributed resources rather than on possession of land. The evolution of this new political economy will determine how we do business in the future. Management scholars, political scientists, policy analysts, sociologists, economists, legal scholars, computer scientists, managers, government professionals, information technology professionals, and even students of philosophy will find Mowshowitz's valuable insights useful in their respective efforts to determine the highly variegated meanings of virtual organization....